Convertcuda, I received your PM ... Here's what I ran into when I converted from an old Lakewood bellhousing to a nice new Quicktime bellhousing ....

First off, I had the Lakewood for probably 30+ years. I don't consider a bellhousing to be a wear item but the Lakewood became difficult to dial into the block. I was experiencing some hard shifting and the pilot busing was getting beat up. I pulled the tranny to replace the clutch disk, resurface the flywheel and decided to dial in the bellhousing to block alignment. The Lakewood was out by 0.015" ... I had previously welded on the bushing kit to get the alignment down to 0.007" total which was the best I could do. On the latest go-around, I could get the runout down to 0.006 but when I tightened up the bellhousing to block bolts, the alignment would shift out by another 4 or 5 thou. I finally came to the conclusion that the bellhousing was warped and trying to get it to 0.004" total run-out was futile. I had read the story behind Quicktime and knew that it was a couple of pounds lighter than the Lakewood so I bit the bullet and plopped down the credit card.

Parts arrived shortly thereafter. My first surprise was that the Quicktime block saver plate didn't have relief holds for the lifter valley oil galleys pipe plugs. The Lakewood that these holes. Of course, the pipe plugs in the back of my block sat about 1/4" proud from the bellhousing mounting plane. I transferred the location of the holes from the Lakewood to the Quicktime and drilled the two holes. I got the block saver mounted and then bolted on the flywheel.

I did a test fit of the QT bell and it dial indicated out of the box at 0.002" total runout ... I was happy. The Lakewood weighed 36-1/4 lbs ... the Quicktime weighed 26-1/2 lbs ... there's just under 10 lbs weight savings there ... every little bit counts! The design of the QT really reduces the volume inside the "can". I could get my hand inside the clutch fork access hole in the LW ... I could barely get my fingers inside the QT. I bolted in what I thought was the correct clutch fork pivot and inspected the rest of the bellhousing. I went to mount the z-bar ball stud and found that the bracket that held the ball stud was pretty thin. I didn't think I could get enough threads cut in there to hold the ball stud over time. I thought about adding a nut to the back side but the metal mounting bracket folds over right in the area where you would try to fit a nut. Plus, I though that getting a wrench on there to tighten it would be a big pain. I didn't want to weld anything onto the bracket and catch the eye of the tech inspector at the track. I figure that welding on the bellhousing could void the SFI rating. So I made a little backing plate and ran the tap through both pieces of metal at once. I briefly thought about going to a hydraulic throw-out bearing but they're pretty pricey and I was still recovering from the bellhousing purchase.